1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a nursing cover, and more particularly, a nursing cover and infinity scarf.
2. Background Art
Privacy and discretion is always important when women choose to breast feed their infants, particularly in public. Many times, women simply fold-up or put away their nursing cover after utilizing it to breast feed their infant. It would be useful to have a nursing cover that could easily be converted into a useful piece of women's clothing both for convenience, practicality and cost savings on woman's clothing. While having privacy is important to nursing women, it is also imperative that their infants are comfortable while nursing, e.g., without inadvertent coverings that are not only suffocating, but also obscuring lines of sight between the women and the nursing infants.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,003,565 to Jamie Leach (hereinafter Leach) discloses a fashion neck scarf comprising a hidden compartment that holds a nursing panel. The scarf may be an endless ring, or so-called “infinity” scarf, or a long rectangle. The nursing panel is sized to cover the front of the person and at least the infant's head and shoulders while the infant is nursing. A proximal edge of the panel is fixed to the scarf inside the compartment, and the nursing panel is alternately positionable between a stowed positioned in which the panel is compacted inside the compartment and a deployed position in which the panel is unfurled. This scarf may be arranged in several different fashionable configurations when the nursing panel is not in use. When nursing the infant, the scarf can be arranged in different ways to maximize the user's comfort and to secure the panel in position and prevent it from being displaced inadvertently. Leach discloses a neck scarf which lacks a support for maintaining its nursing panel in an erected position. Leach's nursing panel may only be used to cover a nursing infant partially and cannot be secured.
There exists a need for a nursing cover which is readily available to a nursing woman and a nursing cover which is capable of providing privacy to the nursing woman while maintaining a “micro” environment which is comfortable for both the nursing woman and her infant.